Pine Meridian
by Epimitheus
Summary: This is my first fanfiction, still, nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this work. This is a mystery story where the Pine Twins, returning to Gravity Falls as their new-found annual tradition, stumble upon anomalous happenings that have been touched upon, but are still out of the grasp of their expertise despite everything. The story will be updated weekly unless events prevent me.
1. Chapter 1

If one takes a wrong turn at the fork of the 95 highway, leading to the Washington state border, one might find themselves in a peculiar, minuscule burg known as Gravity Falls. Here the rustic, yet uniform cabins are spread thickly at the bottom of a bowl-shaped hollow, squat on the edge of a river that leads down from the Canadian wilderness onto the very border of the town, to cut select dwellings away from the rest.

Leading down from the wooded hills, some would be hard pressed not to spy the brier-bordered stone walls of the enveloping mountain scape, gaping wide like monstrous maws; and the bridge that overpasses the gap that lingers about an air of a time of America's youth. Here the ground gets lower, and the summits begin to look sketched from an all-too-symmetrical painting. The lake that ebbs to the right seems manmade; the industrious manner of the town seem primitive; many buildings clearly being from the late Victorian era, leading the way into a fashion of the early 1990s, giving a sense of displaced time.

Here the wild weeds, brambles and other thick flora gain a luxuriance, not widely found in many settled regions. At the same time, planted fields are apparently few or nonexistent. The logging industry seems to be the easiest discernible factor of work for the town, but not much else.

Without quite knowing why, one might find a reluctance to ask directions from the gnarled, solitary figures, sometimes spied now and again, on crumbling, ramshackle doorsteps or loitering in the almost vacant cul de sac. Those furtive figures seem to give off an almost palpable feeling of queer, forbidden things, with which it would be better to be left uncovered. And when one inquires on specific events that occurred in the town's past that may have been viewed from the far side-lines of neighboring villages, one will find a standoffish feel of secrecy, trying to keep sleeping dogs asleep, and with a superstitious fear of speaking about any anomalous events that are even just rumored upon. (Such rumors happening in the town's youth, back when the burg's history was jumbled and obscured, and back when the talk of witchcraft and demon-lore was wholly a viable fear in the minds of the denizens.)

Outsiders visit Gravity Falls as much as possible, in some vague attempt to grasp at the unknown events that surround the town's youth, and the fantastical quirks that some of the town's history hints at; many of whom usually left as baffled as they entered or even more so. But since a certain season of panic and paranoia, spreading outwards to only two of the town's neighbors, most of the signposts pointing the way to the burg were taken down, so what little traffic any of the businesses had once caught had now been dwindled significantly.


	2. Chapter 2

To say the story began when they first arrived at Gravity Falls, Oregon would be an erroneous statement, for no story truly ever begins. There are always events that are traced back and beyond in a seemingly infinite timeline, some stories more significant than others, but still apart of one whole arc that spins forever onwards.

So it is only arbitrary that this section of the story, in which we choose to embark, is squatted somewhere in the early middle of his life, in his late adolescence. Somewhere between past not yet forgotten, and a prospect that is wholly untold. Though the arc may be of little importance later on in life or even in the eyes of his past, it is still a story that some feel are worth telling.

The Tourist Trap, once owned by his Grunkle Stan, now owned by a close friend named Soos, that had now tended to it nurturingly since the four years the boy had entered in and out of the town each and every summer since the original arrival; was finally within his own reach, palpable, without the static haze of memory obscuring its character.

The building, not quite able to be completely sustained and yet still having an air of refinement, was a far cry from how he remembered it: What once was originally rotten wood was replaced with fine carpentry; what was once a draft ridden home was now upgraded to seal in any warmth or cold that was trapped; what once leaked no longer did.

The building looked as bright as it may have once did from its original construction, and from the manner Stan originally left it in after handing it over to Soos, it seemed a miracle to see the Mystery Shack brought into such a beauty.

The young man stepped from his own vehicle into the thick thatching of trimmed grass; the gentle mound that his 1980 Chevy Malibu was parked on, shelved down to the Shack's lawn.

His sister, Mabel, had travelled along with him in the same car and was now asleep; mouth-gaped and head leaning on the neurotically cleaned window, with her breath steaming against the glass. Her pig had grown far too large to be tucked on her lap anymore, so he was perched in the back, along with scarce luggage. He was in a similar state as his owner.

A goat bawled feverishly in the distance; cicadas chirped; frogs groaned somewhere distantly. Many eclectic noises emerging with the coming of night. The sun bled low behind the tired, sulking trees; fever spread throughout the woods. Sometimes dogs whined, and somewhere a door banged in the wind. A mild cacophony, peaceful.

The Car's radio cracked with static and some band sang their rendition of 'Hey Jude' in ragtime. Dipper thought that the song may have once been a fitting theme for him, in times long ago, in his awkward years of indelible pining. It played quietly, almost melting into the various wood-pipe noises of the forest.

Mabel eventually awoke during Dipper's time basking in the evening of Summer, the car door squealed open, the steamy gossamer on the window eventually faded into the occasional droplets of liquid. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, tired from the rough, cross-country venture. Dipper was worse for wear from the trip as well. His back arched into a trucker's slump; hands cramped; legs vaguely numb. He had done most of the driving, going sixteen and sometimes eighteen hours on the road, powered by coffee and energy drinks that tasted like petrol. His stomach felt like an explosive chemical reaction as the two things collided violently, and his veins seemed to burn like they coursed with gasoline.

"I think I'm going to be sick." Dipper bawled.

"Oh c'mon, it isn't that bad, Dipper. Looks like Soos fixed the place up."

"At the state we saw it left in, I'm half-sure he just tore down the original and started with a fresh base." He furrowed his brow. "Where is Soos by the way? I mean, he lives here now, so you'd think he'd hear us pull up. "

"Let's go in and surprise them."

"Yea, they must've planned something good." Dipper, fully learned on the ways of Gravity Falls, was somewhat eager and hesitant to do so though. Perhaps it was his research that had begun to consume his mind, or perhaps it was intuition; he didn't really know, but everything seemed off, not right; call it a type of touch for the eldritch, a feeling that seemed half empathic and half telepathic. Mabel, though, didn't see anything out of place and that put him at ease for now.

Mabel let Waddles out of the car, he squirmed out of the seat and through the door. His brow sagged over his beady eyes and he had taken on tributaries of age. His pink, bubblegum pigmentation slowly faded into a hazy reflection of what it once was, some parts of his body more grey than others. Mabel let him eat a half-eaten donut from her hands, chortling as he licked frosting from her palm. They were inseparable those two. Mabel buried her face into his cheek and the pig endearingly licked her, the acts that it sometimes followed resembled a dog more so than a pig.

After arms and legs had been stretched, they set off to the lone cabin. The sign had the 'S' in the 'Shack' part of the title slumped on the roof, though it looked more like an intentional placement than an actual malfunction within the carpentry. It gave the building an air of sterile phoniness - which it always had something of the sort lingering about in an almost palpable sense - but here, it was different. As if it was trying to mimic the squalor that the Mystery Shack had shown in their first stay here. It was like an intentional goof, comparable to when a clown knowingly slips on a banana peel.

They approached the door. It was now made of thick mahogany, no scratches, no sketches and etchings, it was pristine. The window the door had was shaded over with a cheap curtain in a hue that was a sickly greyish-green, similar to what Soos' shirt was dyed. Dipper grasped the brass knocker, gave the door a shave-and-a-haircut rapping, and then waited. Eventually stumbling was heard, groaning as well. There was a shuffle of what sounded like crinkled paper and glass being knocked about on the floor.

Eventually the door opened, though it was stopped by a bolt and chain lock, and the face that peered at them through the dark was not the rat-faced, bug-eyed figure of Soos. They originally thought that it was Grunkle Stan, perhaps came back after old age had finally worn him and his brother down, broken their spirits into stubs. But upon closer inspection it lacked the oddly reddish nose, and the overly thick bifocal glasses.

"Um. We'll be opened tomorrow, it's a little late for tours now." Whoever it was, it was male, and their voice held some kind of antediluvian accent and softness not found in these parts of America.

"Wait!" Dipper exclaimed, making a motion to the door before it would've closed. The person paused.

"Jesus, never saw anyone that excited to get into the shack. I'm sure you can wait. And - gah, kid - clean yourself up, you smell like an anthropomorphic sewer."

Dipper paused. Momentarily forgetting the situation at the comment, but eventually he found his mind again.

"No, you got it all wrong. Soos is a good friend of us, we've been visiting him each summer. Now I know, you must be a new employee, you pro-"

"Listen. I've never seen you or your... Sister? In my life. And I've always been the owner of the Mystery Shack. Just skedaddle."

"Wait, you." Mabel acknowledged.

"Yea, me."

"So, wait. Are you Soos?" Dipper took the reigns of the conversation once again.

"Yea. I'm Soos. Been here since 1981, the Mystery Shack was created in 1983."

"But, wait, wasn't Soos' birthday in 1990?" Mabel inquired.

"What, no. I know my own birthday better than a couple of kids I don't know. Listen, if this is some kind of scam, you need a better schtick. Try using the internet or something, I've heard from some friends that that's an easy source for cash."

"Uh." Dipper began. "We have to go. We'll be around tomorrow, Mr. Soos, we may have found the wrong house." Dipper dragged Mabel away from the shack, the door closed quickly after their departure.

It wasn't until Dipper made it to his car that he felt safe for conversation with Mabel. He took a pin from his vest pocket, began to nervously click the button. This was a habit eventually developed in his youth that he never truly shed. Mabel looked to him worried, Waddles was at her side, vaguely aware of the overtones of distress, but seemingly uncaring of the whole situation.

"And to think Gravity Falls could get any more queer after the - incident." Dipper stated. Mable tittered at his use of the word queer, though there was little mirth backing it. She was scared, well, truth be told, they were both scared. There were myriads of reasons why this man was masquerading as Soos. Dipper feared that it was more supernatural than not.

The cicadas continued to chirp, buzzing like a frenzy; punctuating the closing summer evening with an almost chimerical din.

With worry painted on his face, the only thing he could do was get into his car. The door squealed. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel, sagging in almost defeat. The only real thing he could've thought of pertained to Ford's machine, though that was dismantled for the better of five years ago. Someone may have been able to rebuild it, though he severely doubted it; Soos - His Soos - wouldn't knowingly have allowed such a thing.

Eventually Mabel joined him in the car. She wasn't exactly sure what to say, he wasn't exactly sure what to think.

"This - This is just some kind of prank, has to be." Mabel sputtered with obtuse reluctance.

"You and I both know that's not the case. Something has gone down here since our last visit, we'll have to scout the rest of the town. Something will eventually become obvious, it always had been like that." He put the car in drive and circled around the open space to rearrange the vehicle.

Tempers began to cool, but gooseflesh arose still hot on his skin. Mabel was calmed by his words and attitude; after all, it had always been like that, hasn't it? Through hell, through blisters, through boils, it didn't matter, status set and reset and they rode onwards into the setting sun. She sat back.

Dipper fought against a body that seemed ceased in rigamortis, arms stiffened and jaw tightened, occasionally a ripple of flesh went taut and eased when he siezed control of it; it felt like it was a mutiny in his own body, but he kept driving despite all backminded evocations.

Silence reigned over the atmosphere of the vehicle, a silence to pain your ears and uneasy your mind; to unlock verboten chains of thought and kill minds.

He drove and the engine moaned. They made it to town and when dark fell he turned his lights on and the car seemed like an ethereal bulk with corpse-lamp eyes guiding it. The moon was high that night, yellow and wan like old candle wax. The shadows of trees fell before it on the roads and their high tops seemed to jaw the sky.

The lights were out in all of the buildings, save for the occasional porches that had amber havens falling down their steps. The color of the road was painted gunmetal where there was no street lights. Electric pylons all leered, some with lights which buzzed like some voluminous insect.

"We'll have to sleep in the vehicle tonight." Dipper said, finding a lot near the junkyard and setting it in park, letting it idle. He let the radio play, though he didn't hear it. A song played that repeated "We are the dead." like a hysteric litany that spiraled into a near-comedic madness. Mabel eventually turned it off.

He wiped at his face and simultaniously laid the seat back, metal springs twanged and gears clicked as he set it to different levels. He took his seatbelt off and the buckle hit his forehead, sending dull pain electrified across his skull.

He yelled something he couldn't remember then gritted his teeth and held his head. He expected laughter and only heard it when he looked over to his sister, he sighed and stood up. The motor hummed before he turned it off, and after he did there sounded a small plink like a guitar string breaking.

"What'll we do tomorrow?" Mabel asked, laying her seat back along side her brother and curling her legs and arms under her overly large turtleneck.

"I'll think of something. Not everyone in town can be replaced, can they? Scam artist or pod people, neither could cage the town, it's to weird for anyone."

"The guy was right about something though."

"What's that?"

Mabel tucked her nose under the collar of her turtleneck and it muffled her voice slightly. "You do need a shower."


End file.
